Patients seeking non-emergency medical care traditionally must phone their doctor, hospital, or other caregiver days or weeks in advance, briefly describe their condition to a receptionist, and receive an appointment date and time which may not be convenient. Patients needing emergency care visit a hospital, may wait for hours at an emergency room, and may be examined by an inexperienced, overworked, or exhausted physician. Patients needing non-emergency care must call for an appointment during business hours and may wait on hold for an extended period. Changing an appointment may result in additional delay. Fees for health care are set unilaterally by the provider and are rarely negotiable. Health care providers make large capital investments and may experience swings in patient load that result in productive capacity being underutilized for extended periods. Providers cannot easily shift patient load once appointments have been committed. The inflexibility in appointment scheduling results in frustration for patients and uneven utilization of capital and human resources for health care providers contributing to a higher overall cost of health care to all.